This invention relates to devices for installation of carpeting and methods of carpet installation. In particular, the invention relates to a device for installing rolls of carpet and adjusting carpet that has a bow from manufacture and needs to be installed to perfect alignment with adjacent rolls.
All textile products, such as carpet, due to their nature and flexibility have inherent distortion. Distortions occur in the process of manufacturing carpet. Therefore, when the construction of the product includes a pattern, additional installation steps are required to match the pattern of adjacent carpet pieces. These additional steps can include dry laying carpet to initially check the distortion of the pattern, row cutting on pattern, positioning carpet with a knee kick, use of dry lines to check and create a reference point for pattern straightness and power stretching carpet into alignment and possibly stay nailing carpet to hold it in place while the adhesive sets.
Several common defects occur which must be corrected in the laying of carpet. These common defects include bow, skew and trueness of edge. Bowing occurs when the pattern has gained or lagged in the middle of the roll width. A skew occurs when the pattern tends to form an angle to the length of the roll. Trueness of edge is evident when the edge forms the shape of an xe2x80x98Sxe2x80x99. In all three instances, these pattern distortions cannot be cut out. Instead they must be stretched square again to assure proper pattern match.
Prior devices for correcting these defects used some variety of mechanical advantage to adjust the carpet to correct the defects. A number of carpet stretchers have heretofore been proposed. Early carpet stretchers were secured adjacent a wall and the carpet was pulled by the stretcher toward the wall. Later, it was recognized that pulling carpet was not as easily accomplished as pushing the carpet. Thus, later carpet stretchers had a foot abutting against one wall and stretched the carpet from that wall outwardly toward an opposite wall. Problems occurred in utilizing these stretchers where the rooms were extremely large as the stretching force buckled the stretchers at median points between where the force was applied to the wall and the stretcher was engaged to the carpet. Furthermore, interior walls in modern buildings are commonly not strong enough to withstand the force necessary to stretch large sections of carpet.
More recently, frames have been proposed which extend between opposite walls of long rooms in which the carpet is stretched between members of the frame. The frame prevents the carpet stretcher from buckling as experienced in the past, however, extremely long stretching mechanisms were still required. Artificial supports were provided such that stretchers could be anchored at positions between opposite walls and the carpet stretched in opposite directions toward each wall. These multipart systems are cumbersome to use and require extra expense of shipping and setup.
Hence, there exists a significant need for a carpet installation device and method of use overcomes the substantial and numerous inherent disadvantages of the prior art.
It is an object of the invention to provide a carpet installation device for enabling a carpet installer to easily adjust carpet during the carpet installation process.
Another object of the invention is to provide a carpet installation device having adjustment features to vary the size of the device according to the width of the carpet being installed.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a carpet installation device having slidable adjustment features to facilitate carpet adjustment along the entire width of a roll of carpet.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a mounting for supporting a winch and an anchor for connecting a winch cable thereto for stretching the carpet.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a channel for supporting a winch cable over a roll of carpet to prevent damage to the carpet roll.
These and other objects of the present invention will be readily apparent upon review of the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings. These objects of the present invention are not exhaustive and are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the claimed invention.
In summary, the invention is directed to a carpet installation device having multiple adjustment features to facilitate carpet installation. These features include a base member of variable length having carpet gripping spikes mounted on the bottom thereof. A winch support mounted on said base member for receiving a winch. The winch includes a winch cable for connecting the winch to a remote anchor. The winch being able to stretch the carpet by pulling said base member toward said anchor. An additional carpet adjusting tool is moveably mounted on the base member for adjusting carpet sections. The carpet adjusting tool includes carpet gripping spikes thereon and linkage operated movement for stretching small sections of carpet between the spikes on the base member and those on the carpet adjusting tool.
With these and other considerations in mind, as will become apparent hereinafter, the invention includes certain novel features of construction, combination and arrangement of parts and portions as will be set forth in the appended claims, reference being had to the accompanying drawings and detailed description thereof.